Table of Contents
Title Page
First Published in 2017
To the drama kids who taught me
BEFORE
ALEX
DAVID
NICOLE
KAITLYN
DAY 1 - THE MORNING
ALEX
DAVID
KAITLYN
ALEX
DAY 1 - THE AFTERNOON
NICOLE
ALEX
KAITLYN
DAY 1 - THE NIGHT
NICOLE
DAVID
ALEX
DAY 2 - THE MORNING
NICOLE
ALEX
NICOLE
DAVID
DAY 2 - LATER
ALEX
DAVID
ALEX
KAITLYN
DAY 3
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
DAY 4
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
NICOLE
DAVID
ALEX
NICOLE
ALEX
DAY 5
KAITLYN
ALEX
NICOLE
KAITLYN
DAVID
NICOLE
ALEX
KAITLYN
DAY 6
KAITLYN
ALEX
KAITLYN
NICOLE
KAITLYN
NICOLE
KAITLYN
NICOLE
KAITLYN
NICOLE
KAITLYN
ALEX
NICOLE
KAITLYN
NICOLE
ALEX
NICOLE
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
NICOLE
DAY 7
ALEX
NICOLE
ALEX
DAY 8
ALEX
KAITLYN
ALEX
DAY 9
ALEX
DAVID
ALEX
KAITLYN
DAY 10
ALEX
DAY 11: THE LAST DAY
ALEX
NICOLE
DAY 11: THE LAST NIGHT
ALEX
NICOLE
ALEX
NICOLE
ALEX
AFTER
ALEX
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About Third Person Press
RISE OF THE MUDMEN
a novel by
JAMES FW THOMPSON
First Published in 2017
Copyright © 2017 by James FW Thompson
Cover Artwork © 2017 by Nancy S.M. Waldman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from Third Person Press. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, entities or settings is entirely coincidental.
Thompson, James FW, 1981-, author
Rise of the Mudmen / James FW Thompson
Third Person Press
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.thirdpersonpress.com
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada
Rise of the Mudmen
Print ISBN: 978-0-9936325-4-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9936325-5-6
To the drama kids who taught me
that you can accomplish amazing things
at any age.
BEFORE
ALEX
She ran, stumbling through the forest. Panic and freshly fallen snow tripped her, and it quickly became very clear she didn’t have a chance. Her life could be tracked in just a few terror-filled seconds.
They were on her. First one, then two, and quickly six of them surrounded her. They stumbled and fell as much as she did, but it didn’t matter; they had the advantage. They were in control. They bore down gnashing at her, tearing her flesh as she writhed in fear and pain.
Quickly the image of purity and serenity became a bloodbath. Her jerking motions only stopped as they yanked bloody, steaming pieces of her into their mouths. Their faces were stained red along with the snow-white ground. The only sounds were of their growling and chomping as sticky red tendons snapped from one creature to another. Between bites, one of them looked up, searching for something—perhaps their next kill; perhaps to find anyone who watched them as they fed; perhaps both.
Just as suddenly as it began, it was over with a quick flip of the dial.
“Hey,” Alex said, “I was watching that!”
Shadow, his black lab, woke up with a jerk at the sudden noise. Alex had hoped she might take more of an interest in her canine relatives, but evidently the show was too long for her.
“Yeah, I noticed,” his dad replied. “But it’s supper time, and I don’t want you getting any ideas.”
Alex headed for the kitchen to set the table. “So you’re saying you don’t want to just tear a deer apart on the table?”
His dad shook his head as he flipped through the channels looking for the news. “Naw, I’m okay with spaghetti.” He finally settled on a channel and looked to his son. “Why would they show something like that on TV anyway? That’s just…messy. A bit scary, don’t you think?”
“Dad,” Alex said, rolling his eyes—a habit he had developed in the month since he’d turned fifteen. “It’s New Wilderness! Lorne Greene, talking about wolves. It’s educational.”
“Uh huh,” his dad said, backing onto the couch. “It might be, but I’m already dealing with getting your sister to sleep, I don’t want to have to worry about you and your glomp, glomp, glomp.” He stomped around on the spot, grinning at Alex.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said. “How about you, Mary? Do you have any idea what he is talking about?”
Mary stared back at him and giggled as she kicked her short legs in her father’s arms.
“Exactly,” Alex said, “no one knows what you’re talking about, Dad.”
“Okay, whatever you say. Let me know when the table is set, all right? I’m going to catch some of the news.”
Alex went into the kitchen without a reply. Shadow slumped off the couch and followed him, hoping for a treat before her own supper.
Though he played it off as a joke, Alex didn’t like it when his dad brought them up. The mudmen. Years ago, he had a series of bad dreams: everyone turned into mud creatures who roamed the streets looking for other people to turn. They would eat them and spit them out as more mudmen. He had no idea where the idea originally came from, but his dad was convinced that it had come from an episode of Scooby-Doo and had therefore banned it from the house for a few months. Now whenever anything questionable was watched, his dad brought up the mudmen.
Things like that bothered an eleven-year old, but that was four years ago. Now Alex felt he was practically an adult; he was above such things. The memory embarrassed him—partly because it was so silly to have such an irrational fear and partly because it still sent shivers through him when he pictured the creatures his mind had created.
Though he viewed the idea as a part of his childhood, the worst instance of the mudmen haunting him had actually occurred almost a year and a half ago. May 20, 1985—Victoria Day. The day that his mother died.
She left to get a few things at the grocery store—they were planning a barbeque with family friends to celebrate the long weekend. Evidently, someone else had decided to start celebrating early. She was killed instantly when a drunk driver blasted through a stop sign, into the other lane, and directly into her as she drove to the store.
It made no sense. She was only gone for five minutes, maybe less. It was a safe area, only a few blocks from their house; they knew it well. It wasn’t a high traffic street. They barely ever passed anyone, just friendly people, waving to their neighbours as they coasted by. Plus, it was a beautiful, sunny day. Bad things didn’t happen on
